The emperor's armour-bearer: to the interpretation of the figure from relief of the Great Trajanic Frieze

The paper gives an interpretation of a person, wearing in his hands Emperor’s helmet, on one of the surviving reliefs from the Great Trajanic frieze, which originally belonged to an unknown monument of the Trajan era, and later adorned the Arch of Constantine. This figure is wearing the same type of armour as the equites singulares (cavalrymen) surrounding the Emperor. However, despite this, it is more logical to see in this character not an ordinary bodyguard, and not even an Emperor’s groom, but his chamberlain - cubicularius . Based on the available ancient sources, as well as with the involvement of iconographic material, the author concluded that the figure depicted behind the Emperor is a person with a high status. In some cases, these people had the title of “keeper of the dagger” (a pugione), which may indicate a function associated with the storage of the Emperor’s pugio, which allows cubicularius to be interpreted as an Emperor’s armour-bearer.